Georgia gun shop owner quits after too many mass shootings: "I just can't."

He’s so, so close to actually getting it. Here’s hoping not being continually surrounded by and financially dependent on gun culture will give his mind room to expand that last little bit.

13 Likes

“he only sells to “law-abiding citizens””
And here’s the problem; they are “law-abiding citizens” until one day they decide not to be law-abiding citizens.

5 Likes

Or have their guns stolen by non-law-abiding citizens.

Back in the 90s our next-door neighbor’s house was burglarized and his substantial gun collection was stolen. (I suspect it may have been the work of said neighbor’s ne’er-do-well son or his associates, but it doesn’t really matter.) I don’t know how many of those guns were used to commit violent crimes in the ensuing decades but odds are good the number wasn’t “zero.”

It’s impossible to make a commodity difficult for criminals to get their hands on if you insist on making it trivial for everyone else to get their hands on.

6 Likes

So what? Even if they were “law-abiding citizens”. they can sell it on in private sales with few checks.

Tracing the weapon’s path, from the deputy’s hand into the duffel bag carried across the St. Lawrence, reveals parts of the clandestine journey that turned the legally purchased Smith & Wesson into a crime gun. The 9-mm pistol passed through the private gun sale market, which is largely unregulated in several U.S. states, including Texas and Georgia.

3 Likes

I wish we could repeal the 2nd Amendment, but it will never happen. The best we can do is make sure people abusing it face the harshest legal penalties. Maybe someday we can make that happen?

Better late than never, I guess.

Not with that attitude… I’m sure people said that about all sorts of shit, and things changed. If you don’t push for change, shit will not change, no. Things change when people come together and work for that change.

4 Likes

The second amendment isn’t necessarily the problem. It’s the post Heller interpretation that’s the problem. The probability of a supreme court seeing the light and retreating in the name of pragmatism seems rather remote, but stranger things have happened.

4 Likes

I actually doubt the claim that he only sold to “law-abiding citizens”. I see people breaking the law every day in Indiana, and every single one of them would claim they were ‘law-abiding citizens’. Traffic laws and trespassing mostly, but also various types of abuse, assault, theft, drugs, etc. And a significant number of those people are carrying at least one gun with them at all times, ready to aim if someone challenges them on their actions.

This is not a law-abiding nation. This is a we-can-get-away-with-it-but-YOU-can’t nation.

7 Likes

Even so, the second amendment is unnecessary trash that other countries do better without, so why leave it kicking around to be misinterpreted?

4 Likes

Meme Reaction GIF by Robert E Blackmon

And that, right there, sums up why Trump still has some support in this country, because he embodies that mindset and some love him for it.

8 Likes

even Adolf Eichmann made that claim…

2 Likes

Yeah, that’s how we won the war on drugs, so why not give it a try? /s

A couple of problems. First, those who commit mass shootings don’t usually expect to survive, so penalties aren’t much of a deterrence. The outcome if they do survive? The shooter gets a life sentence, a classroom of six-year-olds gets the death penalty, and their grieving families get a more painful life sentence than anything we could do to the shooter.

Second, if there is a profit to be made from any sort of gun crime, there will be those who go for it, reasoning that they are too smart to be caught. We have the famous example from past centuries, when the penalty for pickpocketing was public hanging and pickpockets worked the crowds at these spectacles.

Punishment after the fact is never as effective as prevention, and prevention means drastically limiting access to guns, 200 year old amendments notwithstanding.

12 Likes

The right to bear arms! So important, it was the second thing we remembered to add, after forgetting to include it in the main body of the document!
The emoluments clause! So important we included it in the main body of the document, but apparently no one gives a fuck if we ignore it!
:woman_shrugging:t2:

15 Likes

or , maybe , enforce the well regulated milita part !! it would seem prima facie . like the nose upon must humanoid faces , that this was an original intent !!

As far as “original intent” goes the Second Amendment became obsolete once the state established a standing military for collective defense.

The Amendment is an oft-misinterpreted anachronism which somehow mutated into a central tenet of the American identity.

7 Likes

… I’m emoluating RIGHT NOW :disguised_face:

3 Likes

The Constitution & Domestic Gun Ownership is a volatile situation not because both sides are so different, they actually want the same thing: to protect, Not to maraud, pillage and conquer. Guns don’t do that. People do. And now here we are, one side has leaders that’s convinced them the other side it raping their children and turning them gay, they are out “to protect” buying 4,000 rounds of ammunition.

Marauding-for-God mindset, protecting their place in this world when, in fact, it’s their side robbing them blind.

This reveals the lie inherent in the talking point, “if you make guns illegal, only outlaws will have guns”. My dad makes this argument sometimes. My answer is always the same–

“Where do you think the bad guys’ guns come from? They are not making them or robbing gun factories”.

Every gun on the street was purchased legally then found its way into the hands of someone with bad intent

2 Likes

Yeah sure. It’s my attitude that prevents the 2nd Amendment from being repealed. I had no idea I was so powerful!